"A Moment with Christopher Makos"
By Julian Bain

Legendary pop-artist Andy Warhol called Christopher Makos, "The most modern photographer in America." Now Makos has become a legend himself. He is an internationally known photographer whose work has become a part of American art history. Being an avid art buff this thought kept running through my mind as I walked down 5th avenue to meet him for our interview. As I turned onto 20th street and neared Makos' studio I actually began to quake with nervousness. Everything I knew about the man flashed through my head. This is the man who apprenticed in Paris with Man Ray. He is responsible for introducing the work of Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring to Andy Warhol. He socialized with Calvin Klein and Halston at Studio 54. During his career he has photographed Mick Jagger, Elizabeth Taylor, Salvador Dali, and John Lennon just to name a few. His photographs have been seen in Rolling Stone, House and Garden, and Esquire. Makos' work is seen in Galleries from New York to Tokyo and in the private collections of such notables as Malcom Forbes, Pedro Almodavar, and Gianni Versace. His dealer in Paris is the cousin of former president Francois Mitterand for Christ's sake! How would I be able to successfully interview the artist and accurately depict his career based on our allotted two hours? As my angst level was reaching an all new high I remembered something that Ocean Drive editor Glen Albin wrote of Makos. He said simply, "Anyone who has spent 15 minutes with Christopher Makos, has seen ideas spraying out of him at a rate too fast to comprehend." He continued, "this is a man whose attention span is matched only by the click of his camera's shutter." I reasoned since I probably couldn't keep up with him I would just take in one moment at a time and enjoy the experience of that moment. How fortunate I was to be able to share a moment with Christopher Makos.

THE MOMENT

As I entered the 11th floor studio an innocent looking young man I had seen in the elevator entered just behind me. Sitting behind a desk Makos paused his telephone call long enough for the obligatory introductions. The young man, Benjamin, was a model who had come by for a 'go-see'. Just then the door opened again and I met Noah, another model who was here for the same purpose. "I scheduled a go-see for the same time as our interview" Makos explained, "this is all a part of the interview you know, so you can see what really goes on around here." While Makos returned to his phone conversation and the models attempted to settle in, I began to nose, er, I mean look around the studio. Work that has taken a career to collect covered the walls. The now famous photo of Andy Warhol in drag hung high in a corner. A photo of a pre-divorced Ivana Trump in her then Trump Towers penthouse was hung near a tear sheet of the Absolut Makos campaign. A portrait of Devine lay on the floor next to a stack of male nudes. A career that has been decades in the making was laid out to view at a glance. The studio door opening a third time announced the arrival of my partners from Miamigo New York, Denio and Jef. Hernandez. Makos had invited them to witness, chronicle, and be a part of the interview process. As the dance music blared, I realized the tone that was being set for our interview. It was very much how I had imagined Warhol's Factory to have been. Lively and upbeat with a constant flow of unique characters trotting through to add their creativity to the collaborative process.

With his business call complete Christopher Makos directed his energies to his guests. "I hope nobody minds, this go-see is just a regular thing I do of having people come over." The artist grabs his camera and begins snapping shots of the two young models. After a couple of shots of the child-like Benjamin he points to him and says, "He's great for kiddy porn don't you think?" With that Makos seemed to have his point of view for shooting this particular model. He saw something that really worked for him and his passion began to take over. I asked him if he could explain how he was able to capture the essence of his subjects so clearly? "I'm trying to take the art of photographing men to a different level than other photographers have. You know the sort of pictures that are on the invitations to the clubs. I try to take that stuff and do pictures of people that are just at the next level. That's not about straight or gay or any of that stuff, its just about iconoclastic young American guys. Who these people are, who this guy is, who that guy is, I never try to change them. I just try to photograph them as they present themselves to me. They arrive, and whoever they are at that moment is how I deal with them. I am seeing him for the first moment and I just sort of respond to what has happened in this exact moment, right now. That's why I always prefer to do what's going on right at this moment. I mean I do have a history and I have somewhat of a future but the most important and interesting part of what's happening is right this very minute."

HISTORY

Choosing to live in the moment is a perfect response from someone whose history is as diverse and all encompassing as Christopher Makos. Born in Lowell, Massachusetts he grew up in El Monte, California before relocating to New York. He was the personal assistant to Tennessee Williams for a while and then moved to Paris to study architecture. While in Paris he apprenticed with one of the centuries most prolific photographers, Man Ray whom he later referred to as his original mentor. I asked Makos to name one thing that he learned from his mentor. His response, "He always used to tell me 'Don't edit while you work', that is one thing that I use to this day."

In 1971 at the age of 23 Christopher Makos met Andy Warhol while at a Warhol exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art. A year later he was hired by Interview magazines then editor Bob Colacello to do portrait assignments for the magazine. It was Warhol himself who later gave Makos a regular two-page spread in the magazine called "IN" that featured photographs of the coolest people, places, and things. Makos consequently became close friend, traveling companion, and personal photographer to Warhol for the last fourteen years of his life. Christopher taught Andy how to use his first camera, art directed Andy's first photography book, "Exposures", and convinced Andy to pose in drag. "We shot that in 1981, it only took about two days." After Andy Warhol's death in 1987 Makos published his second book, Warhol - A Personal Photographic Memoir. This book chronicled their personal and public lives both in New York and abroad. The former curator of contemporary art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Henry Geldzahler, wrote in the introduction, "It is a great asset in Chris Makos' photographs that they reveal new and unfamiliar faces of the legendary pop figure Andy Warhol." The 150 black and white images of Andy taken around the world speak volumes of the relationship between he and longtime friend Christopher Makos. Their history will forever link them together.

THE WORK

Today Christopher Makos' life is much simpler. Watching him work in his studio there seemed to be a relaxed ease to the exuberance in his work. "Now I am older and smarter." He even has a new philosophy, "Have you heard of this? It's K.I.S.S. which stands for Keep It Simple Stupid, I love that."

His work is about being fresh and of the moment. "I thought there couldn't be anything fresher or more of the moment than having a go-see during our time together and having some people come up. Of course I didn't know that they would be children." Then while referring to the nubile young Benjamin he comments, " I mean he's the type I would invite to a Calvin dinner. I do these dinners with Calvin (Klein), not that anything is going to happen. It is just like, let's just see what's going on out there. Who is out there?" I asked Benjamin how long he had been modeling but Christopher answered for him. "Twenty minutes?" He continued, "How tall are you? He is very tall, and you still have some growing to do which is exactly what that world wants. People your height." As for how many go-sees he had been on, "This is my first one." To this Christopher quips, "Oh that's so good, I like them fresh. They don't get much fresher than that."

Christopher Makos' desire to produce photographs that capture that 'freshness' is what sets his work apart. His strive to constantly 'respond to the moment' gives his photographs a refreshing honesty that reflects his attitude toward his work and his life. "I pretty much shoot what I want. If they want it, Fine. If not, Fine." Of course they do seem to want it. Christopher Makos' work is currently on display in more than a dozen galleries worldwide and in more than fifty private collections. His very personal, very graphic photojournalism is available to the public in his six books currently on the shelves, with his seventh book due out June 7th. For an immediate sample of his work log on to his website at www.makostudio.com. By viewing the images of this photographic artist, you to can have your very own moment with Christopher Makos.

GENRE magazine January 2002 NEW YORK USA

Photography legend Christopher Makos is sitting at his desk in his bright, eye-popping Manhattan studio, periodically shifting his attention to the rooftops outside his window. Spread on the floor, his digitally shot series "Gym Story," is a testament to the extent in which his work has evolved and how technology has affected it, "Digital photos are so much fun," he says with youthful electricity sparkling behind his eyes. "It releases me, I've become much more of an artist now. My digital camera is a paintbrush. I don't have to spend the time looking through a long narrow lens." Fidgeting franticly, shuffling papers and spouting semi-profound statements every other sentence, he comes across as a wise and excited child.

Even if Andy Warhol, his colleague and best friend called him 'the most modern photographer in America', his work stands alone and resonates a strong and unique independence. His portraits of people are stunningly revealing; he allows his subjects to emulate who they really are, while his shots of inanimate objects, buildings and animals are extremely personal. "With objects, I put so much of myself into what the picture is. With people, I'm there just as a therapist . . . I can find a beautiful spot on everybody." His optimism is tempered however, "There's two sides to me, I barely believe in people anymore." This statement is questionable when one sees the recent series of photographs he has taken in Spain as a project for the Spanish government. Whether the subject is a child dressed up for a festival in Seville or an action shot of two bickering Chihuahuas, their humanity and Makos' philosophy shines through. "I never look back to 'the good old days.' The future is something that barely exists. It has nothing to do with anything. The best time of my life is always right now."